Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

IMMIGRATION

How Germany is proposing to tighten controls on the Polish border

With thousands of refugees fleeing to Germany through Belarus and Poland, tough talks are underway about reinstating border controls in Schengen. What could it mean for people travelling between Germany and Poland?

Published: 20 October 2021 11:27 CEST
Police check travellers at the Czech-German border
Police check travellers at the Czech-German border during the Covid pandemic. Photo: picture alliance/dpa/dpa-Zentralbild | Sebastian Kahnert

What’s going on?

Thousands of people from Iraq, Syria and other crisis areas have come to Germany via Belarus and Poland since the summer, and concern is growing in the German Interior Ministry. This Wednesday, outgoing Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (of the centre-right CSU, the Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU) will hold talks on potential solutions such as temporary borders between Poland and Germany. However, there are no simple solutions in sight.

The background to this involves a complicated relationship between the European Union and Belarus’ authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko. 

Tensions with the EU have been rising since Belarus’ elections in August 2020, which saw violent crackdowns on opposition leaders and campaigners and culminated in what is largely considered to be an illegitimate landslide for Lukaschenko. Then, in spring, Lukaschenko forced a plane to reroute and land in Minsk so that government officials could arrest a Belarussian political blogger and his girlfriend, prompting the EU to impose sanctions on the country.

READ ALSO:

In retaliation, Lukashenko announced that he would no longer stop migrants on their way to the EU. According to German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD), Lukashenko is now acting as the “head of a state smuggling ring”, essentially pushing through refugees through the country on their way into Schengen. 

How many people have come to Germany via the Belarus route?

More than 5,000 unauthorised entrants have been registered by the Federal Police on the Belarus route this year. Until the end of July, only 26 people had entered Germany without permission via Belarus and Poland.

By August, however, 474 refugees had entered the country, followed by 1,903 more in September, according to the latest data from the Federal Police. By October 17th, another 3,000 people had entered the country without permission at the German-Polish border, most of them probably also via the Belarus route. 

Recent figures from Brandenburg – the state that surrounds Berlin and where most of the people are arriving – seem to indicate that the numbers are levelling off slightly. Last weekend, 288 people were apprehended in the border area, compared to 392 a week earlier. Whether this is will be a longer term trend remains to be seen. 

It’s worth noting, however, that the situation is much less severe than in 2015 and 2016, when Germany last faced a so-called “migrant crisis”. In 2015, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) recorded 476,649 initial and subsequent applications for asylum, followed by 722,370 initial applications in 2016.

READ ALSO: ‘I’d do it again’: Refugees reflect on their journey to Germany five years on

In contrast, BAMF received just 100,278 initial applications for asylum by the end of September in 2021. However, this was 35.2 per cent more than at the same time last year – though that might be explained by the difficulties of travelling at the height of the pandemic. 

What is the situation on Poland’s border with Belarus?

Poland, Latvia and Lithuania are desperately trying to close the EU’s external border with Belarus. All of these countries are building border fences, while Poland is also planning a permanent fortification. The border guards there have registered around 10,000 attempts at illegally crossing the border to Belarus since the beginning of October alone – after 6,000 in September. Many migrants are now being turned away at the border, which is legal under international law.

A barbed wire fence between Poland and Belarus
Polish police erect a barbed wire fence on the Belarussian border. Photo: picture alliance/dpa/SOPA Images via ZUMA Press Wire | Attila Husejnow

What is illegal, however, are so-called push-backs – when people have already reached EU territory and would actually have the right to apply for asylum. There have been reports in the Polish press that migrants have been pushed back into Belarus, where they have been beaten up by local authorities and driven back towards Poland.

The exact situation is unclear because Poland has imposed a state of emergency in the border area. In any case, despite all of the hurdles currently in place, thousands have made it to Germany via the EU’s external borders and Poland.

What about border between Germany and Poland?

Federal Interior Minister Seehofer has already approached his Polish counterpart Mariusz Kaminski to discuss how to secure the borders between the two countries.

So far, he has suggested joint patrols by German and Polish border guards, mainly on the Polish side. This would be a measure “below the threshold of a temporary reintroduction of internal border controls”, Seehofer claimed. However, some have interpreted this as a warning signal to Poland, because it is precisely these border controls, which are generally not permitted in the Schengen area, that are now being discussed in Germany. 

How will this affect commuters and tourists? 

During the Covid-19 pandemic, some checks have been put in place along Germany’s external road borders already in order to ensure that everyone entering has proof of vaccination, recovery or a negative test to hand. However, with limited police resources, these have mostly been rather patchy spot checks on vehicles.

READ ALSO: REVEALED: Germany’s plans to curb Delta wave with new Covid travel rules

If Germany and Poland decide to tighten up the borders further with stationary checkpoints, it seems increasingly likely that people travelling between the two countries would need to have identification and residence permits to hand in order to be sure that they can pass through without issues. 

In addition, border checkpoints could lead to traffic jams and delays in the transportation of goods between the two countries. For people who regularly commute between Poland and Germany, this would probably mean additional travel time on both legs of the journey.

Two police officers check drivers at the German border
Two police officers check drivers entering Germany from the Czech Republic as part of the Covid travel regulations. Photo: picture alliance/dpa/dpa-Zentralbild | Daniel Schäfer

However Dieter Romann, the Federal Police President, has emphasised that people will still be able to travel freely between the two countries if they’re authorised to do so. 

“We have no intention of restricting the free movement of people, and we have no intention of restricting the free movement of goods,” he told Tagesschau on Wednesday. “But we do want to look into one truck or another to see if people are dying of thirst or suffocating there.”

Controls at the border between Poland and Germany are primarily a fight against smugglers, he added.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

TRAVEL NEWS

‘Germany lacks a sensible airline policy’: Is budget air travel on the decline?

Budget airlines complain that an upcoming tax hike is one of many accumulating costs that are pushing ticket prices up. The Local takes a look at trends in German aviation and asks, are the days of cheap flights coming to an end?

Published: 25 April 2024 15:16 CEST
'Germany lacks a sensible airline policy': Is budget air travel on the decline?

April is a big month for budget airline anniversaries in the Bundesrepublik: Ryanair first landed at Frankfurt’s Hahn Airport 25 years ago in April 1999, and EasyJet is also celebrating its 20th anniversary in Berlin.

Both airlines have expanded greatly since stepping into the German market. Ryanair, which had served around 5 million passengers in 1999, now has 184 million guests annually and has grown into Europe’s largest flight provider. In the same time, EasyJet ramped up its service in Berlin, bringing more than 84 million passengers to and from the capital city.

All of which is to say that the beginning of the 21st century was a good time to be in the budget airline business, at least up until the beginning of the Covid pandemic.

But more recently the industry has contracted in Germany while it continues to grow elsewhere in Europe. 

According to the latest flight schedule analysis by the German aviation industry association (BDL), direct airlines are expanding their flight schedules in Europe at a level that hasn’t been seen since the Covid pandemic.

In the next six months, Ryanair will offer 17 percent more seats on the continent than in the same period of the pre-pandemic year 2019. In Germany, on the other hand, which is weakening overall, they only have 78 percent of the previous supply – a decline of 22 percent.

For its part, EasyJet had reduced its presence at the Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) from 18 to 11 aircraft for the 2023 winter flight schedule. However, the company points out that they are expanding their capacity at BER this summer.

EasyJet told The Local: “We have increased our capacity at BER with 200,000 seats for summer 2024…[including] five new routes this summer to Antalya, Izmir, Birmingham, Toulouse and Salerno.”

READ ALSO: What intercontinental flights can I get from smaller German airports?

Budget airlines are looking for bluer skies

Both Ryanair and EasyJet suggest that fees and operating costs at German airports have gotten too high.

“Berlin is among the most expensive airports we operate from,” EasyJet told The Local, adding, “Airport costs represent about 20 percent of EasyJet’s operating costs and are the second largest cost after fuel.”

The company suggests that these costs make up a large proportion of passenger ticket prices for short haul trips, and therefore high airport fees are limiting its ability to stimulate demand.

Representatives from Ryanair have made statements along similar lines. “The German aviation market is broken, and the government lacks a sensible airline policy,” Ryanair marketing chief Dara Brady said at a recent anniversary ceremony, according to the German Press Agency (DPA).

In particular, both airlines are not happy about a passenger tax hike which is coming into effect on May 1st. The German aviation tax (Luftverkehrsabgabe) will increase by about 20 percent, and will add a cost of at least €15.53 to one-way European flights, which will be reflected in higher ticket prices for customers.

READ ALSO: Everything that changes in Germany in May 2024

EasyJet told The Local that it is “disappointed with the increase of the passenger tax”, and that the “cost increase will result in higher fares for consumers and damage Germany’s connectivity”.

In addition to passenger taxes, there are also handling costs, take-off and landing fees, as well as fees for security checks on the ground and air traffic control. These costs vary between airports, and directly impact airlines’ plans to expand or curtail operations in a given location.

For example, when Frankfurt Main Airport offered temporary discounts on take-off and landing fees in 2017, Ryanair moved a large part of its Hahn fleet temporarily to the Main.

As operating costs have steadily creeped up in Germany, budget airlines have looked increasingly to other countries for their expansion plans. 

But that doesn’t mean budget airlines can afford to ignore Germany completely. EasyJet maintains that Berlin and Germany are still “a key market for the company”, and last autumn Ryanair suggested that it is aiming to increase its German market share.

Passengers stand near the Ryanair check-in counters. Photo: OSCAR DEL POZO/AFP.

In particular Ryanair aims to expand at Frankfurt’s Hahn, in Weeze on the Lower Rhine, in Memmingen, Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden and Nuremberg.

What should a passenger flight cost?

Despite mounting costs and taxes that airlines complain about, the fact remains that plane tickets are commonly cheaper than equivalent train tickets despite the much higher energy use involved.

That plane tickets can be offered at such low prices is largely explained by the fact that the aviation industry is among the most undertaxed and overly subsidised sectors of the economy.

Airlines aren’t charged VAT or a kerosene tax when they fly between many European destinations today. When the same journey is made by train, rail companies are charged both.

In this sense, Germany’s passenger tax hike on May 1st can be seen as a very small step toward levelling the playing field so that ground transportation options become more competitive.

“In a climate crisis, giving tax exemptions to a super polluting sector is incompatible with the challenges of today,” Jo Dardenne, the aviation director at the clean transport campaign group Transport and Environment, told Euronews following an announcement that France would hike its taxes on flights last year.

Compared to the amount of money pumped into fossil fuel subsidies that airlines rely on, Germany’s passenger tax hike is small change.

According to reporting by Investigate Europe, Germany spends the most to support cheap fossil fuels out of all European member states, with German taxpayers doling out €12.5 billion annually in support for the aviation sector, as of 2020.

READ ALSO: Germany to grant big industry firms subsidies to clean up their act

Still, commercial airline passengers in Germany will certainly not to be happy to see the price of flights rising. Customers can expect to pay between €15.53 and €70.83 more for flights scheduled after May 1st.

With reporting by DPA

SHOW COMMENTS